As president and trustee of The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Penelope McPhee directs the Foundation’s strategic focus on fostering opportunities for children and youth and enhancing the quality of life.  Arthur M. Blank founded The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation in 1995 to share his civic values and the joy of giving with his family.  Through his generosity, the foundation, along with Blank and his wife’s personal giving, has granted more than $200 million to various charitable organizations.

Penny joined the Blank Family Foundation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami, where she was vice president and chief program officer, directing the planning, development and implementation of the $1.8 billion foundation’s grant-making programs. A national leader in the arts, she joined the Knight Foundation in October 1990 and launched its national Arts and Culture Program.  She became vice president and chief program officer in September 1996. 

Penny has had a distinguished career as an author and television producer.  Her television programs have won five Emmys, as well as prestigious awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Association of Television Program Executives.  For seven years she was on the staff of WPBT, Miami’s public broadcasting station, where she launched its cultural affairs department and served as executive producer of cultural programming.  In this capacity, she produced a wide range of award-winning cultural documentaries, performance programs and dramas for local, regional and national broadcast.

She is also a noted author whose pictorial history of the civil rights movement, "Martin Luther King Jr. A Documentary: Montgomery to Memphis," was recognized in 1980 as one of the "Best Books of the Decade" by the American Library Association.  Her 1986 book, "King Remembered," received the New York State Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Freedom.

Penny serves on the boards of the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Voices for Georgia’s Children, the Atlanta Committee For Progress and the Southern Business Leadership Council.  She chaired the Mayor’s Task Force on Arts and Culture Funding.  She also recently served on the board of the Council on Foundations, the Emory University Board of Visitors, the Mayor’s Task Force on Early Childhood and the American Red Cross Georgia Disaster Campaign Cabinet.  She is a past board member of the Southeastern Council of Foundations; past president of Grantmakers in the Arts, a national affinity group of arts funders; and past chairman of the Dade County Art in Public Places Trust.   

Penny has a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, and was graduated with honors from Wellesley College, where she received her bachelor’s degree in English and theater arts.  She and her husband, Raymond H. McPhee, a retired film and television producer, have one daughter, Cameron Brook McPhee.